Darlene, I had no idea you were homeschooling. What you said about France was interesting – isn’t our public school system based on theirs? No wonder so many kids are stressed out at school.

Arika, maybe we can trade some VA work for homeschooling. LOL! Seriously though, if you’re toying with the idea, look into co-ops. Basically homeschoolers trade out “classes” in their area of expertise. You teach them art, she teaches them Spanish. It’s a nice way to share the workload.

Melissa the link you provided wasn’t clickable, but I’ll search through your blog and try to find it.

Mara – agreed on the theory of evolution. When I think of the mandate that we parents are given to teach our children “when we walk on the road, lie down and get up” (it’s early and dark and the kids are asleep and I can’t find my Bible but it’s Deuteronomy!) I think how better to do that than to have them there all day. And yes it is sometimes hard, but like you said, I wouldn’t do it any other way either.

My older son, as a matter of fact, took to reading like a fish to water. At 10 he’s reading on an upper high school level. He wouldn’t have been encouraged to excel in public school. My youngest, who’s 6, can read on level and is really fine with that. I’m not going to push him, I want him to love reading and I don’t see that happening if I push it on him.

Another aspect that caused me to homeschool, which I guess goes along with religious conviction, is that I can actually teach my children about the Bible – both the historical and the spiritual aspects. I can teach them about creation, and emphasize that, but will also teach them about the THEORY of evolution. Until they can PROVE it, it’s still just a theory, and no more important than creation.

Most importantly, I don’t want my children to be held back. If they were in public school, they wouldn’t be able to excel in one area or another. They’d be expected to do just what everyone else was doing, when everyone else was doing it. I want them to love learning and I believe they will have a much better chance of doing that if they are taught at home.

I’d be lying if I said it was always easy. It’s not. But, I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

Why I Homeschool

As an almost accredited teacher (would have made me a third generation teacher) I was always against homeschooling. I thought it was stupid.

My kids were born in France where school starts at the age of 3. They have full days, are bussed in, and France boasted the 2nd highest suicide rate amongst highschoolers due to the stress of their graduation system. My husband and I are from two different countries, and were living in a third country. We wanted our kids to understand their heritage correctly (you would not believe what people are taught about Canada!). All of that combined, we started homeschooling as an experiment. 9 years later, we’re still “experimenting”. The only comment I get from others regarding my children’s development is “It’s always so interesting talking to your kids. They know about EVERYTHING!”

Even their ultra conservative, highly educated Irish family is now in agreement. It was a tough battle to win in a family of PhDs but I don’t get any flack anymore about it.

Having helped other moms get their kids through school, I’d also say homeschooling is much easier than the morning chaos, the multiple volunteer expectations, and the evening stress of masses of homework competing with very important family time.

I never thought I’d homeschool. I’ll never do anything else.

Darlene

That said though I LOVED school. It was one of the BEST times of my life and I absolutley adored college too and would love to go back and get an advanced degree. The only thing I would have changed is that I would have went to an Ivy league school away from home but my parents would not let me go away from home…I think you would understand why.

Right now my oldest son loves school too and I am happy. I worry about the socialization because he doesn’t get the same weekly interaction I had with the truth. Heck I rarely socialize at all now.

He is in a REALLY good school but the homework IS outrageous. But if it stops being fun I have no problem with him staying home. One of my fears is that he will become the school jock, be a football player, and get himself into trouble…football players are Gods here and we didn’t have in Arizona. And he is so darn beautiful he is already the object of female attention just like his dad. hmmm…perhaps I am secretly hoping he will want to come home after 8th grade too.